History
The Beginning The Nothing According to my well versed knowledge of everything arcane, In the begining there was nothing. Though no-one knows how; a terrible entropic monster arrived in the nothing and the nothing fought back. The Primordials and the Elemental Chaos In this cataclysm the elements were introduced into the universe; after the monster was slayed its life energy was released into those churning energies and the surrounding nothingness. Untold eons passed as the first Primordials began to form out of the chaos. These elemental creatures churned, shaped, and destroyed the chaos, eventually shaping it into a plane known as The Elemental Chaos and they became its lords. They would create worlds from the elemental soup than due to their entropic nature would immediatley destroy them, pulling them back into the chaos. The most beautiful world they ever created escaped their grasp and slid into the mortal plane. Into the view of the gods. The Gods and The Astral Sea When the unknown entropic monster lost to the nothing in the beginning of time its life energy spread not only to the newly introduced elements but the surrounding nothingness as well. The life that slipped into the elements was more destructive and unconscious than that which entered the nothingness. That life energy was the conscious side of the monster, which in turn, churning in the nothingness conceptualized into creatures of thought and concept and life. These creatures are referred to now as The Gods. No two gods could share a dominion; a particular area of power over a concept. But their numbers were so great that every possible dream, thought, and aspiration was covered and the will of The Gods filled the nothingness and their divine grace blessed it; filling it with astral mist; and the nothingness became the plane we call The Astral Sea. The gods had the ability and the power to shape and alter all that which they could see, so they created astral dominions; homes which perfectly reflected the abilities and personalities of the god that called it home and out of the astral mist they gave birth to the angels to be there servents and advisors. The Gods were content with ruling over there seperate domains, that is until they saw a world form in the mortal plane. The Dawn War Moradin's Creation When the Elemental Chaos and the Astral Sea were first forming, The Gods and the Primordials thought little of eachother. The primordials couldn't comprehend the epherial form of the creatures of the astral sea and the gods had trouble understanding the solid forms of the denizens of the Elemental Chaos. That all changed when the world we now call Firstone came into the mortal plane. Y'see when the elements filled the void, it didn't so much fill up the nothing as much as it went under it; and when the astral mist poured from the gods will into the nothing it actually just covered it. Thus the true nothing still exsisted inbetween the planes. The Astral Sea being the plane above and The Elemental Chaos being the plane below. When Firstone appeared in the nothing it officially became the world of the now newly christened mortal plane. The World having been made in the elemental chaos was composed of matter of all forms, but being sandwiched inbetween the two planes gave the world strange properties. In the astral sea there is no entropy for everything is abstract. In the elemental chaos there is no true creation, instead in the infinite space the infinite chaos can accidently look like the illusion of creation, but really it is just a cycle of entropic destruction. So the world picked up divine grace from the Astral Sea and elemental arcane magic from the Elemental Chaos. The Grace of the astral sea gave it the capability to sustain life, and a strong power in the mortal planes core; The Magic of The Elemental Chaos introduces entropy and death to all life that the astral sea sustained on Firstone, and thus the Mortal Realm became Mortal. When the gods saw Firstone they thought little, but Moradin immediately saw its potential. Moradin went down to the chunk of elemental debris and started working. From the raw primordial stone and magma Moradin crafted the first mountains. The gods watched as he played with the raw stuff of creation; the longer he stayed in the mortal realm the less powerful he became, so it was, that Moradin was the first god to corperate. Moradin took a more mortal form so he could retain his power in the mortal realm. Moradin shaped the world and then decided that it needed inhabitants.The other gods saw what Moradin had done and started to do the same, The Gods picked corprial forms and shaped the world. Once a god understood how to alter real matter they would tend to pick a favorite. The gods, who prior only had one domain, now picked multiple; some picked elemental, others picked domains more familiar, more conceptual like shadow, and time. Thus, Melora filed the valleys with water and called it the ocean; and Tuern blessed the arcane flame and made it a tool for mortals. The world was not fit for a god, so it was Moradin who decided to see if he could create its inhabitants. He took the finest diamonds and from these he crafted the first dwarves on the soulforge. Io saw what Moradin had created and thought them weak. Io tried to create a mortal race as powerful as the gods, so he created the first dragons. While the triplets Melora, Lolth, and Correllon created the elves, some gods even populated Firstone with beast and unintelligent animals, so that all of it may be appreciated. Not all the gods had an interest in creating life though, a forgotten god came up with cycleical air currents while others noticed things Firstone had to offer. Correllon was the first to sense the magic flowing through the earth, so he harnessed it and created the arcane arts. Though to the gods it felt like little time had passed, multiple generations of the new mortals had already passed, and worshiped the gods in there entirety. It was a time of great peace and creation, until the shard came along. The Chained God and The Shard of Evil Though the planes knew not what evil was, certain gods still had ambition. One of these gods who's name is forgotten by most and not uttered by the intelligent, was unsatisfied with Firstone and The Astral Sea. This god tried to breach the planar veils, and in doing so he discovered that he could travel to the Elemental Chaos. Previously Ioun had said that i was impossible to cross planes with anything besides the mortal realm. This awoke a mad curiosity in the future Chained God. While the gods were busy with the creation of Firstone he explored the depths of The Elemental Chaos, the farthest extremities from Firstone in the mortal plane and the highest points in The Astral Sea. No-one knows where he went, some even think he may have breached a new and unknown plane, but somewhere during his exploration he found a small crystaline shard. This shard was pure concentrated evil and upon touching it he immediately went mad as his entire character was devoured with the evil. The future Chained God went back to the Astral Sea and awakened the evil in other gods. Everywhere he stepped evil would spread slowly taking over whole Astral Dominions; and when he went back to the mortal plane the entirety of he plane was infected with evil. Where previously there had only been peace, the mortals started to war with each other as concepts like greed and hate were introduced to there moral minds. The gods who had become evil thanks to this god cultivated the evil in there followers and made sure that it would spread. The gods that remained unaffected were greatly offended by what was happening and Pelor decided that something had to be done. The Chained God went madder and madder until not even the Evil gods could stand back and watch as he attempted to destroy the entire planescape. All the gods and there angelic armies fought against His will and army, and after a great time had passed he saw that he could not win the conflict so he fled into the Elemental Chaos. The other gods, who didn't even know that they could travel that far from there astral homes followed in pursuit, but because he had been traveling the chaos for many eons prior they could not follow him through the maelstrom. In his madness he believed the gods were trying to take the shard from him, so when he reached the bottom of the chaos he planted the shard where no god could reach it. He ascended from the chaos, Insanity gripping him worse than ever before and he decided to take on the gods. They fought him across all the planes, sewing chaos and strife everywhere the battle occurred. After some time it was finally Lolth that bound him and the powerful exarch of He Who Was, Asmodeous, who struck the final blow. The Chained God fell, and then he earned his name. Moradin and Lolth bound him in unbreakable chains and He Who Was, Nerull and Pelor, hid The Chained God away from all. Ioun then stole the knowledge from the gods that hid him so that none may find him and break his chains. Even though the gods were victorious the damage that He had done was irreparable. Over half the gods had fallen in the conflict and even more gods had fell to evil during the fight. The fact that Lolth was so close to him when she bound him is what drove her mad, and the blow that fell him is what made Asmodeous evil. So it was that the fall of the drow, the Rise of Asmodeous to power, the Battle of the Dead, the Rise of Bane and the War of Winter and every act of evil is still just fallout from the The Chained Gods fall.